Damage Undone
by thisloser
Summary: written for a naruto meme prompt: One character gets hurt protecting another who ends up blaming himself.


**A.N.:** Idea shamelessly stolen from Martin Amis' novel _Time's Arrow_.

* * *

Kakashi doesn't know how long he'd been standing in front of Gai's hospital room before he heard the sound of glass breaking. He also doesn't know whether he would have entered the room at all if it hadn't been for that noise, which made him storm in without a coherent thought, just this sudden, overwhelming sense of panic.

He'd like to think that he would have entered either way, that he's not _that_much of a coward, but he's known himself for too long to be able to fool himself to that extent.

Now, he is in Gai's room and on his knees, picking up tiny shards of glass from a puddle of tomato juice that looks too much like blood.

"You don't have to do this," Gai says, sitting up in bed and feeling around his mattress for Kakashi can't imagine what.

"It's no trouble."

It really isn't, considering that the alternative would be to stand up straight and look Gai in the-

Look at his face.

"But it's good to know you're still as clumsy as ever," he adds, going for an easy, teasing tone, then he has to bite back a wince when he pricks himself on a glass shard. It feels like punishment.

Gai's wandering hand brushes the top of Kakashi's head; it's an awkward moment for both of them. Kakashi stiffening and Gai sort of flinching away before deciding to go all in and go looking for Kakashi's shoulder while he's at it. Obviously, he never paid attention in anatomy class.

Resigned, Kakashi helps him out by guiding his hand. Although it hurts his heart to have to do it, to see Gai having to hold on to the side of his bed to avoid falling, to feel the shakiness of his grip.

He should have stayed outside.

"It's not your fault. Don't blame yourself, rival." Gai says surprisingly gently and Kakashi makes a fist around his glass shard and squeezes.

And around the constant of the biting pain in his palm and fingers Kakashi's thoughts wind like thread. He thinks about time, about linearity, about Gai's life from this moment onwards, how there is no going back for any of them, how they are constantly driven forward, mercilessly, all towards the same end.

_Glass splinters and red liquid worms crawl across the tiled floor, forming a perfect glass of tomato juice that is promptly catapulted into the air by gravity. Startled, Gai pulls his hand back upon accidentally grazing the glass as it settles down on the nightstand next to his hospital bed. He breathes in deeply and swallows painfully, drying his wet lips with a quick lick of his tongue that turns the paper-thin skin white and cracked. Then exhaustion seems to overwhelm him and he falls back onto his pillow suddenly, where he lies for a moment, gasping in despair, then blinking in confusion.__White strips of bandage raise themselves off the floor, elegant like snakes. They find their way into Gai's hands and he – tired of seeing – slaps them over his eyes in one violent motion. His movements become sluggish and slack after that, until they stop almost completely, except for the slowing rise and fall of his chest. _

_The room, too, darkens, the window offering a view of the reluctant sun descending back behind the horizon. Soon the sleeping Gai is whisked out of his hospital room by a couple of medics who make sure to switch off his heart monitor and take out his IV needle before wheeling him into the OR, where an exhausted Tsunade is already waiting patiently for their arrival.__She unwraps the bandages first, slowly and carefully, without hurry. Then she picks up a needle and begins to undo the stitches on Gai's face and the side of his head – stitch for stitch she threads her needle through skin, until the wound lies red and open in front of her. Now her agitation seems to grow every second. She puts the needle aside and holds her hands over the raw, bleeding flesh, the green glow of her chakra casting deep shadows on her face. A tiny rain of dust and dirt falls from her hands into the open wound; white bone shards slide apart like melting ice floes. Shizune appears at Tsunade's side to gently apply sweat to her forehead with a washcloth, then she hurries away, Tsunade yelling after her. _

_More medics come running in her stead, to quickly smear dirt and blood on Gai's body and put the tattered remains of a green jumpsuit on him, mending the tears in the fabric by simply forcing the ends together with their bare hands. They have barely even finished when Tsunade stops suddenly and flees the room in horror, without ever taking her eyes off her patient._

_Gai is lifted onto a stretcher then, and carried out of the hospital and Konoha in a mad rush. Out through the village gates onto the main road, all the way into the forest of wind, where Kakashi is waiting, on the soft ground, on his hands and knees, his fingers digging into earth and dead leaves. Panting for breath. Next to him one medic already does a skittish little dance of back and forth. His hand is on Kakashi's shoulder when the others arrive and proceed to gently drape unconscious Gai onto Kakashi's back, but Kakashi yells at him, so he withdraws back to Konoha with his colleagues._

_Kakashi goes into the opposite direction. At first he crawls, literally, with Gai on top of him, soaking up blood out of Kakashi's stained vest, turning dark brown spots green again. But Kakashi, too, recovers a little with every step he takes. Soon he can run and carry Gai piggyback. He speeds up; signs of wear and tear vanish. A tree branch brushes his face like a caress and heals a nasty, bleeding scratch in the process. He is injured as well, but thankfully the small cuts in his skin steadily suck his blood back into his body._

_He gets to a battleground, to a torn up field littered with rubble and rocks… and corpses. Kakashi makes his way to a prominent heap of rocks, an errant stone steadying his unprovoked stumble by getting under his sandal. Once there, he grabs Gai and stuffs him into a small cleft between the rocks; he has to push hard to make it work, but he manages. Frantically, he throws more rubble and dirt on top of his friend, then, an expression of utter despair on his face, he runs towards the nearest dead body – his eyes never leaving the place where he buried Gai._

_Gravitation pushes the dead man up to his knees even before Kakashi has reached him. Kakashi jumps the last two meters, easily and gracefully, he lands in front of his dead enemy and while the man is still dead and still straightening despite it, a flash of chakra shoots suddenly from Kakashi's fingertips to his shoulder. He wastes no time; he shoves his hand into the gaping wound that blooms in the center of the dead man's chest and watches the life flood back into his dusty eyes._

_The man gasps as Kakashi, quick as lightening, pulls his arm out of the warm chest again, blood and flesh molding itself back into the space it leaves. Kakashi's hand comes out clean and unbloodied. _

_The look of shock has also vanished from the man's face, has been replaced by one of deep concentration.__Kakashi jumps aside as fast as he can, and heads back towards the heap of rocks. Frantic again, he lies down in the dirt and pulls his headband down to cover his Sharingan, just as the man he revived raises his arms and the rocks with them. They ascend, and Kakashi feels himself being sucked into their place, the place from which Gai rises like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes._

_The rocks fly towards their master, just like Kakashi flies backwards towards Gai until, for a mere split second, he can feel his back slam powerfully into Gai's open hand, then Gai himself is whisked away and Kakashi has landed on his feet in the very space where Gai was previously buried._

_Kakashi blinks; he looks at Gai until his partner shouts in alarm, then he turns away, bored, then he moves, looking around the battlefield all the while, wariness written on his face.__He ends up next to Gai; they stand shoulder to shoulder._

_And Gai smiles easily and says, "Let's do this, rival!"_

_And, just like that, the damage is undone._

"I don't," he lies.

end.


End file.
